Know What Smokes is a performance piece that embraces the simplest way there is to learn about something: to hit your head against the thing repeatedly. Or to shove your fingers up a nose, or jiggle a pair of breasts until your fingers ache. If we close our eyes and feel what we are pressed against, what do we learn? Lorene Bouboushian and Kaia Gilje attempt to activate sensation through different types of touch—tender, sensual, surprising, painful, mundane, and absurd. Working with closed eyes, they submit to each other’s touch. At times this touch serves as a guide to a deeper sensory experience and at times becomes distracting, invasive, or even a violent element to be defended against. The performative focus of the work arises from commitment to the emotional arcs, the deep fears, and the extreme sensations that their own actions conjure. How do guilt and betrayal function in a world where logic is warped and sensation is central?